'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Gray, threatening clouds, no rain.
Haven't started on Christmas cards yet - I try to keep up with the tradition. Besides, lucky enough to have a few elders & they expect - no, demand a seasonal greeting, in writing.
This great economy has closed my local Hallmark store.
Oooooh, and then there's the impending visit behind the Orange Curtain this weekend.
Tonight, Thursday, CBS opens the night with a FRESH 'Survivor: Pearl Islands', followed by a FRESH
'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation', then a FRESH 'Without A Trace'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Julia Roberts and Rod Stewart.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers is Shelby Lynne.
NBC begins the evening with a RERUN 'Friends', followed by a FRESH 'Good Morning, Miami' (say good night, already), then a FRESH
'Will & Grace' (with Barry Manilow guesting), followed by a FRESH 'Scrubs', then a FRESH 'ER'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Keanu Reeves and Sting.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Greg Kinnear, Bob Odenkirk, and Tom Shales.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Adam Goldberg, Ali Landry, and Dannii Minogue.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN 'Threat Matrix', followed by a FRESH 'Extreme Makeover', then 'Primetime Thursday'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Steve Schirripa and No Doubt, with this week's guest co-host Method Man.
The WB offers 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer', followed by a RERUN 'Jamie Kennedy', then a RERUN 'Run Of The House'.
Faux has a FRESH 'Tru Calling', followed by 'Funniest Animal Outtakes'.
UPN fills the night with 'WWE Smackdown!'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Biography' (another Countdown), 'Holidays At The White House', and the movie 'Young Guns'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Bridges At Toko-Ri', followed by the movie 'Von Ryan's Express', then the movie 'The Sands Of Iwo Jima'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Sharples;
[7pm] 'House Invaders' - Kidderminster;
[7:30pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Kimbolton;
[8pm] 'House Invaders' - Leyland, Lancashire;
[8:30pm] 'House Invaders' - Blackburn, Lancashire;
[9pm] 'Faking It' - Punk Rocker to Classical Conductor;
[10pm] 'Coupling' - Jane and the Truth Snake;
[10:40pm] 'Parkinson' - Nicole Kidman/Cold Mountain;
[11pm] 'House Invaders' - Leyland, Lancashire;
[11:30pm] 'House Invaders' - Blackburn, Lancashire;
[12am] 'Faking It' - Punk Rocker to Classical Conductor;
[1am] 'Coupling' - Jane and the Truth Snake;
[1:40am] 'Parkinson' - Nicole Kidman;
[2am] 'House Invaders' - Leyland, Lancashire;
[2:30am] 'House Invaders' - Blackburn, Lancashire;
[3am] 'Faking It' - Punk Rocker to Classical Conductor;
[4am] 'Coupling' - Jane and the Truth Snake;
[4:40am] 'Parkinson' - Nicole Kidman;
[5am] 'House Invaders' - Leyland, Lancashire;
[5:30am] 'House Invaders' - Blackburn, Lancashire; and
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Christmas In Rockefeller Center', 'Wset Wing', 'West Wing', and another 'West Wing'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jon Stewart is Maggie Gyllenhaal.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Hitler & Stalin: Roots Of Evil', 'Nazi Guerillas', and 'Modern Marvels'.
SciFi has the movie 'Epoch', followed by the movie 'Epoch: Evolution', then the movie 'Meteor'.
TCM features convicts, incarceration & cops all day, then well-written, sharply-crafted comedies all night.
[6am] 'Straight Is The Way' (1934);
[7am] 'You Only Live Once' (1937);
[8:30am] 'Condemned Women' (1938);
[10am] 'We Who Are About to Die' (1936);
[11:30am] 'Night Waitress' (1936);
[12:30pm] 'Within the Law' (1939);
[1:45pm] 'Dick Tracy' (1945) ;
[3pm] 'The Threat' (1949);
[4:15pm] 'San Quentin' (1946);
[5:30pm] 'Step By Step' (1946);
[6:45pm] 'Bodyguard' (1948)
[8pm] 'The Man Who Came To Dinner' (1941);
[10pm] 'You Can't Take It With You' (1938);
[12:15am] 'Dinner At Eight' (1933);
[2:15am] 'George Washington Slept Here' (1942);
[4am] 'It All Came True' (1940). (ALL TIMES EST)
Actress Sigourney Weaver poses with the giant egg prop from the 1986 movie 'Aliens,' on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003 in Washington. The egg, along with a film script and original movie poster are being donated to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. The museum's collection already includes a phaser from 'Star Trek,' and the fedora and jacket worn by Harrison Ford in 'Indiana Jones.'
Photo by Evan Vucci
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Nobel Peace Prize
Shirin Ebadi
Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, seized the opportunity to accuse the United States of using the September 11 attacks to justify violating international law and human rights.
"In the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of September 11 and the war on international terrorism as a pretext," Ebadi said in her acceptance speech, without mentioning the United States by name.
"International human rights laws are breached not only by their recognized opponents..., but ... these principles are also violated in Western democracies," she added Wednesday.
In her speech, Ebadi also commented on prisoners detained at a US base in Cuba, saying they were "without the benefit of the rights stipulated under the international Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the (UN) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
For a lot more, Shirin Ebadi
2004 Sonning Music Prize
Keith Jarrett
American pianist and composer Keith Jarrett won the 2004 Sonning Music Prize, organizers of the award said Wednesday.
Jarrett, who will receive the $80,645 US award July 7, during the annual Copenhagen Jazz Festival, was cited for "having created his own unmistakable language through his exquisite fantasy and intelligence." The 58-year-old artist, only the second jazz musician to receive the prize, "has experimented and modernized (music) without rejecting tradition (and) is uncorrupted of the times and music's trends and caprices," according to the committee's citation.
The last jazz musician to receive the award, named after Leonie Sonning, was Miles Davis in 1984.
The Sonning Music Prize has been awarded annually since 1959 to an internationally renowned composer, musician, conductor or singer.
Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1945, Jarrett toured the world as a pianist with the Charles Lloyd Quartet in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He also toured with Miles Davis' electric fusion group.
Keith Jarrett
A oil painting on wood, 'Laboureurs', attributed to Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, is seen at auction house in Portets, in Southwestern France, December 10, 2003. The small oil on wood painting, which bears the signature 'Vincent' at the lower left, and was painted in 1883 in Drenthe, Netherlands, goes to auction Saturday, December 13, 2003 with opening bidding expected at 1 to 1 1/2 million euros ( $1.83 million).
Photo by Regis Duvignau
Opens Women's Room Exhibition
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono opened her Women's Room exhibition at the Prague's Kampa Museum on Wednesday, just metres from the legendary Lennon Wall where fans of her late husband gather each year to commemorate the former Beatle.
The exhibition, which arrived from France and will be displayed at the Kampa through February, shows a collection of works Ono created starting in the 1960s. One of the main exhibits, the Wish Tree, was placed in the 19th-century museum's courtyard. Each visitor may write a wish on a paper and hang it on the tree.
Another installation, Vertical Memory from 1997, comprises photographs of Ono's father, husband and son.
Yoko Ono
Wedding News
Krall - Costello
Singers Diana Krall and Elvis Costello publicly acknowledged Wednesday that they were married on the weekend in England.
They issued a brief statement through her management company saying that they were married on Saturday. "The wedding was a private event with close friends and family in attendance," said the statement from publicist Stephen Gash.
A source has confirmed an earlier report that the pair was married at Elton John's castle, and the approximately 150 guests included Paul McCartney.
Krall, 39, and Costello, 49, live in New York and also have a home on Vancouver Island.
Krall - Costello
Replacing Casey Kasem on 'Top 40'
Ryan Seacrest
"American Idol" host and DJ Ryan Seacrest will replace radio icon Casey Kasem as host of the weekly pop countdown show, "American Top 40."
Seacrest, 28, counts down the top songs in the country starting Jan. 10, according to syndicator Premiere Radio Networks.
Kasem has been the voice of "American Top 40" since 1970, best known for his long-distance dedications and relating the stories behind the songs. His last show will be broadcast Jan. 3 and Jan. 4.
The veteran broadcaster, a member of the National Association of Broadcaster's Radio Hall of Fame, signed a new long-term contract with Premiere to continue hosting "American Top 20" for adult contemporary stations around the country.
Ryan Seacrest
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Reported to Have Married
Paltrow - Martin
Actress Gwyneth Paltrow married her Coldplay lead singer boyfriend Chris Martin in a secret ceremony last week, just two days after announcing they were expecting a baby together, People magazine reported.
In a report to hit newsstands on Friday, People cited a source close to Paltrow as saying the pair married privately in the southern California seaside town of Santa Barbara on Dec. 5. The magazine said they then headed to Mexico for a honeymoon at the Cabo San Lucas resort.
Publicists for Paltrow, 31, and Martin, 26, declined to confirm or deny the report. People said no family members attended the wedding, which took place shortly after the couple applied for a marriage license.
Paltrow - Martin
Emily Dickinson is shown in this undated portrait courtesy of the Amherst College Library. The reclusive poet is the subject of the new PBS documentary 'Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson,' airing Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2003 at 10:30 p.m. EDT, as part of the 'Independent Lens' series.
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On The Mend
Ozzy Osbourne
British rocker Ozzy Osbourne is on the mend after a quad bike accident and must be feeling better because he has started moaning about the nurses, his daughter Kelly said on Wednesday.
Kelly, who had just recorded the Black Sabbath track "Changes" with her father, told reporters: "He woke up today. He couldn't talk because of the tube in his mouth but he was able to mouth words. He told us that he loved us."
The tearful Kelly did manage to laugh when she added: "He has been complaining about the nurses so we know he's all right. He gave me the 'thumbs-up' and stuck his tongue out at me."
Asked about how the accident happened, Kelly said: "He was in a field and there was grass covering a hole and the bike went in the hole and fell on top of him."
Ozzy Osbourne
Baby News
Leah Remini
Leah Remini of the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens" is pregnant. The Brooklyn-born actress and husband Angelo Pagan expect their first child in June, publicist Samantha Hill said Wednesday in a statement.
Remini and Pagan, a musician and actor, married in Las Vegas in July.
Leah Remini
Won't Face Charges
Ryan Haddon
The wife of actor Christian Slater won't face criminal charges in a hotel room scuffle last month that injured her husband, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Clark County District Attorney David Roger said there's no proof that Ryan Haddon intended to hurt Slater when she hit him with a drinking glass Nov. 10 in a room at the Hard Rock hotel-casino. "We did not feel we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed intentional battery," Roger said. "Both the victim and the defendant maintained that it was an accident."
The couple told police the glass slipped out of Haddon's hand while she was trying to throw water on Slater.
Ryan Haddon
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Denounces Mad TV Sketch
Postal Service
The Postal Service is going ballistic over a Fox television comedy sketch about mail employees going postal.
The Postal Service said Wednesday it is calling on its 750,000 employees to contact Sandy Grushow, chairman of Fox Entertainment Group to protest the sketch on Saturday's episode of "Mad TV." It is asking millions more employees of its private-sector partners to protest, too.
The skit features "disgruntled postal workers at odds with one another over who has the right to go on a shooting spree first," according to the program's Web site.
The sketch features guest star John C. McGinley of the NBC comedy "Scrubs."
Postal Service
Mad TV Web page on sketch
Darth Vader's black helmet, mask and shoulder armor from 1980's 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back' is shown in this undated publicity photograph, and will be up for sale at auction by Profiles in History on December 11, 2003 in Hollywood. The item could fetch $40,000 to $60,000, but given that it comes with an accompanying authentication letter from 'Star Wars' creator George Lucas, the price could go higher.
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Director Urges Meditation
David Lynch
As director of such dark films as "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Drive" and the television series "Twin Peaks," David Lynch seems an unlikely leader for a world peace campaign based on mass meditation.
Lynch has joined a Washington real estate developer and a former magazine executive to try to raise $1 billion to bankroll a foundation meant to supply instructors in Transcendental Meditation to ease the planet's stress.
Lynch, along with local real estate developer Jeffrey Abramson and Robert Brown, a former executive with Ziff-Davis, Inc., is promoting the establishment of a University of World Peace in the United States.
David Lynch
New Details Released
Phil Spector
Authorities responding to a 911 call at the home of record producer Phil Spector in February found a blood-spattered gun, broken teeth and the body of an actress who had been shot in the mouth, court records showed.
Lana Clarkson, 40, was found Feb. 3 slumped in a chair in Spector's hilltop mansion in suburban Alhambra, Calif., east of Los Angeles. Her broken teeth were scattered around the foyer and stairway and a blood-spattered .38-calibre Colt revolver lay under her left leg, the records said.
Police found Spector standing near the body with his hands in his pockets, records show. When he refused to show his hands, police used a stun gun to subdue him and place him in custody. In all, the court papers said, 10 guns were recovered from the mansion.
For a lot more, Phil Spector
Cancels Michigan Show
David Copperfield
Magician David Copperfield cancelled a Michigan show after a tractor-trailer hauling his equipment overturned Wednesday.
The truck wrecked on Interstate 75 in northern Kentucky about 6 a.m. EST. Equipment spilled out and the highway's northbound lanes were shut down for about two hours, the Grant County sheriff's office said. The driver suffered minor injuries, authorities said.
Copperfield was travelling in a van as he and his crew headed to Kalamazoo, Mich., for his scheduled show Wednesday night, said his publicist, Phil Lobel. The show has been rescheduled for March 8.
David Copperfield
Taken in Australia
Rembrandt Etchings
Thieves broke into an Australian home and stole two valuable etchings by Dutch master Rembrandt from a bedroom wall, police said Thursday.
The etchings, a self-portrait and one depicting the artist's mother, were valued at about $518,000, said senior detective Craig Davis.
The etchings are more than 300 years old and had been in the family for seven generations, Davis said. The family's name was not released.
Rembrandt Etchings
Finds Largest Known Prime Number
Michael Shafer
More than 200,000 computers spent years looking for the largest known prime number. It turned up on Michigan State University graduate student Michael Shafer's off-the-shelf PC.
The number is 6,320,430 digits long and would need 1,400 to 1,500 pages to write out. It is more than 2 million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number.
Shafer, 26, helped find the number as a volunteer on an eight-year-old project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.
Shafer ran an ordinary Dell computer in his office for 19 days until Nov. 17, when he glanced at the screen and saw "New Mersenne prime found."
for more, Michael Shafer
GIMPS
2003 Billboard Music Awards
Winners
The 2003 Billboard Music Awards winners, announced in Las Vegas on Wednesday:
Artist: 50 Cent.
Duo/group: 3 Doors Down.
New female artist: Beyonce.
New male R&B artist: Chingy.
New group: Evanescence.
R&B artist: 50 Cent.
R&B/hip-hop group: Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz.
R&B new artist: Beyonce.
R&B producer: R. Kelly.
R&B songwriter: R.Kelly.
Rap artist: 50 Cent.
Rock artist: Audioslave.
Rock track: "Headstrong" by Trapt.
Modern rock artist: Audioslave.
Modern rock track: "Headstrong" by Trapt.
Independent album artists: Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz.
Independent albums: Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz.
Soundtrack single: "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence.
Mainstream Top 40 track: "Where is the Love?" by Black Eyed Peas.
No. 1 Rhythmic Top 40 track: "Right Thurr" by Chingy.
Country artist: Shania Twain.
Country albums: Shania Twain.
Country album: Shania Twain.
Best-selling single: "This Is the Night/Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Clay Aiken.
Hot 100 female artist: Beyonce.
Hot 100 group artist: 3 Doors Down.
Hot 100 producer: R. Kelly.
Hot 100 for most weeks at No. 1: Beyonce.
Hot 100 songwriter: R. Kelly.
Digital track: "Hey Ya!" by OutKast.
Century Award for creative achievement: Sting.
Other awards will be announced in Billboard Magazine's year-end issue, scheduled for publication Dec. 20.
Winners
A White tiger named Reena takes one of her baby tiger cubs in her mouth for a stroll, at the Amersfoort Zoo in the Netherlands, December 8, 2003. Reena's two white tiger cubs, Trixi and Maxi, named after Dutch Queen Beatrix and Princess Maxima, took their first stroll into their habitat on Monday, after their birth on October 11, 2003.
Photo by Michael Kooren
'The Osbournes'
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